Dad's financial setbacks gave son a hunger for business

Boo has used that motivation all his life and now, at just 29, is the owner of four businesses, including the newly launched Corptown Capital, which offers financial courses to business owners, and a printing firm.

His impressive portfolio also extends to a mobile application and Web-based software developer and a social-media-platform developer.

Boo recalls two experiences that shaped him. During the 1997 Asian financial crisis, his father suffered heavy losses in the stock market, forcing the family of four to move from a bigger house to a four-room apartment. "Initially, I couldn’t accept this," he said.

The second was the closure of his father’s bread manufacturing and distribution business. The Singaporean government took back the plot the business was built on for other developments, and it had to move to Bedok from the northern part of the island.

Boo said moving to Bedok "was not realistic because our market was focused on the north and west areas and Bedok was in the east". Also at that time, his uncles, who were his father’s partners, wanted to retire, and so the business ended.

"All along, I had admired my father and suddenly he was out of a job. I couldn’t accept that failure, so I wanted to make a comeback for the family."

Boo, who is married, holds a diploma in banking and finance services from Ngee Ann Polytechnic and a Bachelor of Science in economics and finance from the Singapore Institute of Management-University of London programme.

Singapore-based Corptown Capital emerged after he approached the corporate advisory firm his fiancee at the time worked for in Hong Kong with an idea. "I realised a lot of corporate finance service providers don’t go around actively looking for clients. Their marketing is passive," he said.

Boo proposed setting up a training company to help bosses decide whether they could go public and to prepare and guide those that wanted to.

The team has managed to deliver on the number of participants it said it would bring to its courses, he said.

Money-wise, what were your growing-up years like?

I feel I was groomed to be an entrepreneur from a young age, as I came from a family of entrepreneurs.

In secondary school, I sold mobile-phone accessories, which my dad sold at a shop in Malaysia to teachers, friends and retail outlets in my neighbourhood. I stopped taking pocket money from my parents when I was in Secondary 2.

Later, when I was in Polytechnic, I [did tutoring] and briefly tried out the business of matching tutors with students.

How did you get interested in investing?

In 1995, I was 11 or 12 and my parents were buying stocks actively, that was when I first started getting interested in stocks.

They ended up losing more than Sing $300,000 in the 1997 crisis. That really got me interested because I wanted to "take revenge". It motivated me to take my education in finance and investment seriously.

Through investing, I also evaluate how companies became successful. This is of interest to me and what I enjoy doing, as entrepreneurship is in my blood.

Describe your investing strategy.

I look at the fundamentals of the business as opposed to the latest trends in share price movements. I will look at the company prospectus and study who runs the organisation.

Then, I will see if the company is overvalued or undervalued by looking at metrics such as the price-to-book value.

I do not trade actively in the market – my investment horizon is more long-term, of one to two years.

What’s in your portfolio?

I’m looking at financial-institution stocks such as OCBC [Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation] and UOB [United Overseas Bank} for asset-preservation purposes.

For asset-preservation purposes, I go for stocks that don’t have high gearing. In addition, these companies must have at least 20 per cent of assets in cash and cash equivalents.